by H. P. Bayne
“Not without a warrant,” Forbes said. “As a former cop, you know that as well as I do. Now if the parents agree to surrender the device to me, that’s another story.”
“The Devereauxs have basically turned the room into a shrine. Nothing’s been touched since Carter died. I don’t know how happy they would be to part with it.”
“They’d probably be a lot happier than if someone broke into their house and made off with it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been around a while, Braddock. A person as wealthy and powerful as Montague might just decide to have someone take care of his little problem for him.”
“You really think he’d go so far as to hire a cat burglar? Or to orchestrate a home invasion? I didn’t even tell him where they photos were. He wouldn’t know they’d be at the Devereauxs’.”
“He probably wouldn’t, but he’s not going to do this himself, is he? He’ll hire someone younger. Someone young enough to figure out the most likely place a kid will keep his photos is on a device in his home.”
“Still seems out there.”
“I would have thought so at one time,” Forbes said. “But I’m a veteran cop sitting in a hunting cabin with a detoxing wife who’s responsible for a recent homicide. There’s not a lot we won’t do to protect the women we love. What if it were Eva in those pictures?”
“It wouldn’t be.”
“Humour me.”
“Montague wants to dump Tessa without losing a pile of his money and property in the process. He hired us to find evidence of an affair. This is evidence of an affair.”
“Okay, but there are affairs, and there are affairs. It’s one thing for her to be caught with an adult. This isn’t pedophilia given Carter’s age at the time, but it’s only a hair above that. In one scenario, your client comes out a jilted husband or a chump at worst. In the other, well… there are going to be questions asked. It’s going to make the news. Even though he didn’t do anything wrong, he’s tarred by proxy. You’re telling me you don’t think he might take a few measures to ensure that doesn’t happen?”
Forbes had a point. Montague had asked him, after all, to destroy the photos. Dez might have bought himself a little time, but there was a solid chance the judge would take steps if he felt his concerns weren’t being addressed.
“I see your point,” he said.
“The problem’s the same,” Forbes said. “The police can’t seize the device without a warrant, and we can’t get a warrant without grounds. As of yet, you haven’t provided me with anything concrete enough to reopen the investigation, let alone apply to a judge for a warrant. Like I said, if you can persuade the parents to turn over the device for use in a potential investigation, great. Otherwise, as the saying goes, you’re shit outta luck.”
24
Sully was still sitting outside the gym, Pax growing ever more restless in the backseat, when his brother called.
“Change of plans,” Dez said. “I’m going to take over Tessa watch. I need you to go to the Devereauxs’ and see if you can persuade them to give you the gaming system with the photos.”
Sully turned at movement from the front of the gym, and watched as a woman with a long, blonde ponytail bounced out the door and toward the yellow car.
“Change of plans,” he said. “Tessa’s leaving the gym. I’ll ask about the gaming system later.”
“Is she going to her car?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Tail her, but don’t let her see you.”
Sully rolled his eyes despite the fact Dez wasn’t there to see. “Yeah, I think I got that part, thanks.”
“Hey,” Dez said before Sully could disconnect. “Something kind of weird happened today at Montague’s. I pulled up to the front gate and it just opened. I thought he must have buzzed me in, but he hadn’t. Any idea how that might have happened?”
Sully kept his eyes on Tessa, now sliding into her car. “You mean, any idea if it involved a ghost in the machine, so to speak?”
“We’ve seen them open stuff before. They can manipulate electronics pretty easily, can’t they?”
“Without being there, I can’t tell you if it was Carter,” Sully said. “It’s possible, I guess. Or maybe there was some sort of glitch.”
“I guess. But I doubt that guy would go long without having his security system serviced. If it was Carter, what do you think it means?”
“Without asking him, I have no idea,” Sully said. “But it’s Tessa’s house, too, so that might have something to do with it. Speaking of, I’ve got to go. She’s about to pull out of the parking lot.”
Ending the call, Sully made like an undercover officer on those cop shows he’d grown up watching, allowing two vehicles to pass before pulling into traffic behind Tessa’s car. With the two cars separating them, all Sully could do was hope not to lose her at a traffic light.
Luck was on his side, and he managed to successfully track Tessa to a destination.
Uncertain where he was, he made a call to Dez.
“She stopped at an apartment building, an older brick thing downtown on Platton. Give me a sec and I’ll check the address.”
“Don’t bother,” Dez said. “I know where you are. That’s Lars Ahlgren’s apartment. See if you can pull up alongside the building, somewhere you can watch the parking lot exit at back and still keep an eye on her car.”
It seemed an impossible request until a check revealed the entrance to the fenced parking lot was on a side street rather than the back. From here, Sully could still make out—though barely—the rear bumper of Tessa’s sports car.
“I’m there,” Sully said. “So getting back to what you were asking earlier. Why do you want me to take the Xbox?”
“I told the judge about Tessa and Carter.”
Sully winced. “How’d he take it?”
“Not well. I thought he was going to fall on the floor. Once he’d gotten past the shock, he asked me to destroy the original photos and all copies. I talked to Raynor and he’s worried the judge might pay someone off to destroy the photos if I don’t get them first.”
“You didn’t tell him how to find the originals, right?”
“He knows they were in Carter’s possession, so Raynor says it stands to reason they’d be at his parents’ place. I didn’t mention the Xbox.”
“So what’s the plan? We get the photos and tell Montague we destroyed them as per his request?”
“Something like that,” Dez said. “At least until I can come up with something better. I’m on my way over to you. Call if anything moves.”
Sully hadn’t had a chance to end the call before his attention was drawn to a vehicle emerging from the parking lot. While he couldn’t tell from here who was inside Lars’s SUV, it was clear there were two people.
“Something’s moving,” Sully said. “They’re leaving.”
“Damn it. Okay, tail them. I’ll see about getting the Xbox.”
Disconnecting, Sully fell in behind the SUV, tailing it into the downtown core until it finally reached the onramp to the freeway.
So far, the traffic had been thick enough to allow Sully to blend into a crowd. If the two of them were headed back to Winteredge National Park and the caves, he would have a harder time going unnoticed.
“One problem at a time,” he muttered as he stepped on the accelerator to keep up with Lars’s speeding Jeep.
“One problem at the time,” Dez grumbled as he pulled up alongside the Devereaux house.
He hated this role reversal he’d left himself open to: his brother, who circumstances dictated should remain invisible, tailing suspected murderers while Dez was here, about to attempt to pry a ghost’s prized possession and his deepest secret from the hands of his grieving mother.
Once he had the system in hand, Dez would pick up Lars and Tessa’s trail—if Emily’s beater held out. It had started doing some weird chugging thing at a couple of lights, leaving Dez to wonder how much money the woman had to devote
to exhaust system repairs.
For now, though, his neighbour’s car was the least of his concerns. Dez left the clunker behind, making for the backyard and the deck leading to the rear door.
Lana was home—he had yet to find her not at home—and she smiled a greeting at him as she recognized him. Dez did what he could to meet the warm grin.
“I’m sorry to disturb you again.”
“That’s all right. Did you find anything out?”
Dez had thought through how best to get what he needed. Sully told him he had made the decision to keep Carter’s secret from his parents—at least for now, having deemed the fragile trust he’d earned more important—and Dez was loathe to do any different.
“I have a request, and I’m hoping you’ll hear me out,” he said. “There are some images of Tessa Hanson on your son’s Xbox, and I think the police should see them.”
“Oliver told me there were photos—he showed me one. But I wouldn’t have thought there was anything there that would interest the police. Is there?”
“I’m not sure exactly what we’re looking at,” Dez said. He tried to alleviate the guilt by reasoning what he’d told the woman wasn’t altogether untrue; he really didn’t know exactly what would come from any of this, or what use the photos would be in the end.
Unfortunately for him, Lana picked up on the not-quite-honest aspect of his reply. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Dez felt the blood pool in his face, and he urged it back before it became a full-fledged blush. “Here’s the thing, ma’am. It’s come to my attention someone might try to get their hands on the photographs in Carter’s Xbox. I’d like to remove it before that happens.”
“Couldn’t you just take a copy? I really don’t want to part with it. It meant so much to him.”
“I know, and I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was really important. The concern I have is that someone might come here to take it. I’d like to take possession of it and put it out there I have it. I’m worried your home might be targeted in a break-in otherwise. I’d rather they come after me than you.”
He might have moved her slightly in his plea, but the reluctance was still there—reluctance and, if he was any judge, more than a little suspicion.
“How do I know that isn’t what you’re doing here now?” she asked. “Our lawsuit is pending, and it’s set to be heard in court next week. Suddenly, all of this starts up about Carter, and now you want to take a device that contains all of his photos. Maybe there’s something else on there, something that might help the school division or Ahlgren. How do I know you aren’t working for them?”
Dez took a breath and tried again. “I understand why you’d have a hard time trusting me. You barely know me. And you’re right. I just dropped into your life on the eve of this lawsuit. But that’s not what brought me here. I’m here because of Carter, because of what Oliver can see. Your son needs help, and I’m trying my best to help him. And part of that is helping you.” When Lana still didn’t look convinced, Dez tried another tack. “Do you remember the sergeant who investigated your son’s death?”
Lana’s nose wrinkled almost imperceptibly, enough to show Dez she did, in fact, remember Forbes Raynor. “Yes, why?”
“Did he ever give you his cellphone number?”
“It was on the card he gave us at the time. I think I put it into my phone. Why?”
“Call him. Check me out. He’s not at work this week, but he’s got his cellphone on him. He and I have been in touch about the system, and he’s interested in seeing it if you let me borrow it. Like I said, it might turn out there’s nothing incriminating there, but it could be a deeper look at it might reveal something Oliver didn’t see earlier.”
He supposed it spoke to his powers of persuasion that Lana agreed to make the call, although she left him on the deck and closed herself inside the house while she did it.
Dez remained on the back deck, stealing repeated glances at the clock on his phone as five minutes turned to ten, ten to fifteen. His anxiety had almost led him to knock when Lana at last re-emerged, gaming system in hand along with one of its controllers.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she handed it to him. “With everything Hal and I have been through the past few years, we tend toward over-caution.”
“I can understand that. I don’t know exactly when it will be, but I’ll make sure this gets back to you, all right?”
Her hands now empty, Lana hugged her arms across her front and nodded, a sheen in her eyes providing the reason for her sudden silence.
Dez’s mind flashed to his daughter Kayleigh. She had a stuffed giraffe she called Speckles, one Dez’s dad had given her not long before his death. Kayleigh was older now and didn’t carry Speckles with her everywhere anymore, but the giraffe was never far away. Eva told him while Kayleigh insisted she was too old for stuffed toys, she never slept without Speckles watching over her from its permanent spot on the bed.
Dez could only imagine how difficult it would be to watch a stranger take Speckles from Kayleigh’s room if, God forbid, she was where Carter was now. Sure, a gaming system wasn’t the same as a stuffed animal. But maybe it was. After all, it represented a piece of Carter—one more piece being taken from his parents, two people who’d already lost everything that truly meant anything.
“I’m really sorry about all this,” Dez said. As much as he meant those words, they felt insufficient, so he added, “I can’t imagine how I’d feel if it was my little girl.”
The problem was, of course, he could imagine. He’d lost people in some pretty awful ways, and his brain travelled dark paths whenever he sat quiet for too long. He had thought about it, what it would be like to lose Kayleigh, Eva, his mom. He’d thought about it long enough to picture the outcome, one that would lead him far too quickly to a place on the other side where, hopefully, he would join them. He’d barely survived losing his dad, Aiden and Sully. To lose Kayleigh especially, that would be more than he was built to withstand.
How the Devereauxs had fought their way through four years of unbearable pain was beyond anything Dez could imagine.
It was beyond anything he wanted to imagine.
If she hadn’t heard the truth in his words, Lana’s smile proved she’d at least seen it in his face. She granted her final consent with a nod and disappeared back inside the house, leaving Dez to take the device back to Emily’s car.
The street was quiet, just one older model car having turned onto the block. Dez placed the gaming system carefully on the passenger seat and circled the hood toward the driver’s side.
The streets in this part of town weren’t particularly wide, but they were sufficient to allow space for both parked and moving traffic. Plenty of room for the oncoming car to move around Emily’s car.
So there was no good reason for what drew Dez’s attention now: the grill of a car aimed not at the road, but at him.
Dez didn’t have time to voice the curse word that formed in his brain, every nerve ending in his body preoccupied with the need to get the hell out of the way. There were times it paid to be tall, the length of his legs easing the leap he made across Emily’s hood. He flung himself hard enough he didn’t come to a stop on top of the car but on the sidewalk next to it, gravel from the crumbling pavement digging into his palm and scraping along his flesh as he tried to catch himself. Landing in a heap, Dez craned his neck to try to make out the car’s plate, but it was moving too fast. What he did get was a slightly better look at the vehicle at it sped away, the insignia on the rusted white trunk identifying it as an Audi.
His gaze shifted at the sound of rushed footfalls, and he looked to see Lana rushing toward him.
“I saw what happened. Are you all right?”
Dez picked himself up and checked his left hand, the one he’d used to keep him from landing on his head. It was bleeding, but not badly, and he could see at least two spots where pieces of the flaking sidewalk had embedded into his skin. “Yeah, I’m all right. Yo
u didn’t happen to get a look at that car’s licence plate, did you?”
Lana flushed red, then shook her head. The blush told Dez more than the head movement.
“You know who that was, don’t you?”
“It must have been an accident,” she said. “I’ve known him for years. He would never hurt anyone.”
“Who was that, Mrs. Devereaux?”
Lana closed her eyes, sealing them tightly shut as if to block out the brightness of the afternoon sun. A tear slipped down the edge of her nose as she finally opened her eyes, tortured gaze falling back onto Dez.
“I tried to reach Hal at work, but he’s in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. I wanted to speak to someone about the gaming system, to ensure I was doing the right thing giving it to you. I just didn’t know what to do, whether Carter would be okay with it. When I couldn’t talk to Hal, I….” She paused long enough to take a measured breath. “I called Evan.”
This time, Dez vocalized the swear word that sounded in his brain. “Shit. Let me guess. Evan drives a white Audi.”
Another deep breath from Lana. Another nod.
“Shit,” Dez said again.
“I should probably call the police, shouldn’t I?”
Dez had been thinking the same thing, but the dread on Lana’s face had him changing his mind. Evan was Carter’s best friend, his oldest friend. Having to turn him in on an attempted hit and run would shatter Lana even if Carter was still alive. Demanding she take on that sort of responsibility under the circumstances, that was more than Dez could ask.
“No, don’t worry about it.”
“He almost ran you down. I mean, I’m sure he didn’t mean it, but it’s still very serious.”
Dez was sure Evan had meant it—there had been no evidence of braking and every evidence that car had been veering for him intentionally—but no use sharing that with Lana.
“I’m not hurt bad,” he said. “If you’ll let me wash up, that would be great. I’d really like to find Evan and have a chat with him.”